Leadership Team

Passion for Compassion

Our leadership and management teams are focused on meeting patients’ needs in rare medical conditions and committed to delivering results for all Strongbridge stakeholders.

Matthew Pauls

President and CEOBoard of Directors

“Our mission is to bridge treatment gaps for patients with rare diseases.”

Matt has more than 20 years of leadership experience in the pharmaceutical industry and has been president, chief executive officer and director of Strongbridge Biopharma plc since August of 2014. He brings extensive general management and commercial leadership experience to the company, including U.S. and global product launches, negotiation and execution of numerous business development transactions, significant experience in raising capital in the public markets, clinical development, and oversight of global technical operations.

Before joining Strongbridge, Matt was the chief commercial officer at Insmed, a publicly traded biopharmaceutical company. Prior to that, he served as senior vice president, head of global commercial operations at Shire Pharmaceuticals and also held senior positions at Bristol-Myers Squibb in brand management and payer marketing, and at Johnson & Johnson in various U.S. and global commercial roles.

Matt was previously the chairman of the board of directors at Mast Therapeutics, Inc., and currently serves on the board of directors of Strongbridge Biopharma, Savara Pharmaceuticals, Egalet Corporation, and is a volunteer board member of The Pennington School in Pennington, New Jersey.

Matt holds MBA and BSBA degrees from Central Michigan University and earned his JD from Michigan State University College of Law.

Fredric Cohen, MD

Chief Medical Officer

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Fred joined Strongbridge in 2015 and has held roles of increasing responsibility, including senior vice president, global research and development, and vice president, clinical research and development. Fred is an endocrinologist by training with more than 20 years of drug and business development experience, most recently focused in development and commercialization of rare disease and specialty products. Prior to joining Strongbridge, Fred provided strategic and operational counsel to life science companies, actively supporting their development and licensing functions. Prior to that, he served as executive director, clinical pipeline, at Aptalis Pharma, where he was responsible for innovation strategy as well as building and advancing the company’s specialty pharma pipeline. He has also held research and development positions with Johnson & Johnson and Eli Lilly & Company.

Fred holds an MD from Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine and an AB in biology from Franklin and Marshall College.

Brian Conner

Chief Compliance Officer

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Brian brings more than 20 years of experience in developing, launching, implementing and managing effective global compliance programs. Prior to joining Strongbridge, he served as director at Huron Consulting Group, where he provided compliance design implementation support that considered both risk management and the business needs for medical device, pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies. Prior, as the assistant compliance officer of the Americas for Shire Pharmaceuticals, Brian operationalized the company’s compliance program in the U.S. and Canada for the neuroscience, gastrointestinal and regenerative medicine business units. His in-depth industry knowledge includes extensive experience in rare disease markets within the areas of corporate ethics and compliance, general management, regulatory affairs, quality assurance, basic R&D, manufacturing, and sales/marketing.

Brian hold a BS in teacher preparation/biology from Drexel University.

A. Brian Davis

Chief Financial Officer

“Our goal is to do right by all stakeholders, not just shareholders.”

Brian has more than 20 years of experience in management and financial activities with life sciences companies, including equity and debt financings, restructuring activities, strategic transactions, and negotiations involving partnering, licensing, drug discovery, and clinical development. Most recently, he served as senior vice president and CFO at Tengion. Earlier in his career, he held a series of positions of increasing responsibility during his 15 years at Neose Technologies, including senior vice president and CFO.

Brian holds an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a BS in accounting from Trenton State College.

Stephen Long

Chief Legal Officer

“We’re here to meet the challenges posed by rare diseases.”

Steve’s 20-year career has been focused on navigating the legal complexities faced by life sciences companies, including publicly traded, development, and commercial-stage firms. Corporate governance, transaction structuring and negotiation, complex litigation, compliance initiatives, intellectual property management, regulatory and clinical matters, and public company representation have all fallen under his purview. Steve has served as an attorney at Reed Smith LLP and spent 12 years at C.R. Bard, where he rose through the organization to become vice president, general counsel, and secretary. He has also served as assistant general counsel at Warner-Lambert Company.

Steve received his JD from Albany Law School of Union University and a BS from the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University.

Robert Lutz

Chief Business Officer

“We’re in the business of improving care for patients with rare diseases.”

Rob leads the business development efforts and commercial strategy implementation at Strongbridge Biopharma. He brings 25 years of experience in finance, business development, and product management to the team. Prior to joining Strongbridge, Rob worked at Shire for 10 years in a number of diverse roles with increasing global responsibility. He also draws upon substantial experience in the financial and energy sectors.

Rob holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and a BA in economics and computer science from Amherst College.

Dave Bonnell

Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing

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Dave has more than 25 years of commercial experience within the biopharmaceutical industry. Before joining Strongbridge, he served as vice president, rare disease and GI specialty sales at Shire Pharmaceuticals, where he directed multiple highly-specialized sales teams, focused on two rare diseases: hypoparathyroidism and short bowel syndrome. Prior, Dave served as vice president, neuroscience sales at Shire, where he successfully led the ADHD sales organization. In addition, he served in a variety of sales and marketing leadership positions at AstraZeneca.

Dave holds a BS in business administration from Central Michigan University.

Emily Doyle

Senior Vice President, Global Human Resources

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Emily has more than 20 years of experience in human resources, organizational development, and talent acquisition in the biopharmaceutical industry. Her broad HR experience lends expertise to focus on talent development, culture building, and aligning internal communication and employee engagement strategy. Prior to joining Strongbridge in 2019, she held senior positions as vice president of global human resources at Globus Medical Inc. and head of HR for AstraZeneca’s diabetes franchise. Prior to joining AstraZeneca, she held progressively responsible roles in HR, sales and commercial learning at Shire Pharmaceuticals.

Emily holds a BS in healthcare management from Metropolitan State University of Denver and is currently pursuing her MS in human capital development from LaSalle University.

Peter J. Valentinsson

Senior Vice President, Global Technical Operations

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Pete has 25 years of technical operations experience in bringing new pharmaceutical products to the global marketplace, with specific experience in formulation development, process development, scale-up, technology transfer, and validation for both sterile and nonsterile products. He has held positions of increasing seniority at both large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, including serving most recently as vice president, global pharmaceutical sciences, at NPS Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which was acquired by Shire. Previously he served as senior director, pharmaceutical sciences quality, and also headed one of the product development groups at Schering-Plough Research Institute.

Pete holds an MS and a BS degree in chemical engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Scott Wilhoit

Senior Vice President, Global Market Access and Patient Services

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Scott brings nearly 30 years of industry experience, most of which has been focused within market and patient access in the rare disease category. He most recently served as vice president, market and patient access at Marathon Pharmaceuticals, where he designed and developed the access strategy, including a comprehensive patient services and distribution model. Previously, Scott served as vice president, market access and health services at PTC Therapeutics, leading the pre-launch market access strategy and tactical planning efforts for the company’s Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy treatment. In addition, he served as vice president, pricing, access and patient services at NPS Pharmaceuticals Inc. Scott has also served in a variety of positions with increasing responsibility at Clarus Therapeutics, Auxilium Pharmaceuticals, Biovail Corporation and Johnson & Johnson.

Scott served as a Field Artillery Officer in the U.S. Army and holds a BS in criminology from Missouri Western State University.

Michele Cunningham

Vice President, Commercial Operations

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Michele brings nearly 20 years of pharmaceutical experience in consumer and healthcare professional marketing, with an emphasis on digital strategy. Before joining Strongbridge in 2015, Michele served as director of global marketing at Insmed, where she led the planning and launch of multichannel disease awareness campaigns in the US and Europe, in addition to supporting market research, forecasting, and business development efforts. Prior, she held several product management positions with increasing responsibility at Shire in the neuroscience and regenerative medicine business units, and has extensive experience in brand planning strategy. Michele also served in global market research and marketing operations roles at Shire.

Michele holds an MBA from Saint Joseph’s University, a BS in marketing and international business and a BS in international studies with a Spanish minor from Pennsylvania State University.

James R. Englund, CPA, CMA

Vice President, Corporate Controller

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Jim has nearly 30 years of experience in finance and accounting fields, with nearly 15 years in pharmaceutical industry finance for commercial-stage companies. Prior to joining Strongbridge, Jim served as corporate controller at Auxilium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. for nearly 10 years. Jim has also held positions at IMS Health Corporation and Aventis Behring Corporation. He began his career with positions at Coopers and Lybrand and Sundstrand Corporation (now United Technologies) before focusing on the pharmaceutical sector.

Jim holds a BS in accounting from Rockford University and is a certified public accountant.

Jennifer McDonough

Vice President, Patient Solutions and Channel Operations

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Jennifer has more than 20 years of experience in the specialty and biologics market, with a focus on channel strategy, distribution, reimbursement and patient engagement strategies across various disease categories. She joined Strongbridge in 2017 from AmeriSourceBergen Lash Group, where she served as vice president, specialty pharmacy strategy and new business development and was responsible for integrating business development across all phases of commercialization. Prior, she served as director, managed markets, specialty channel strategy and account management at EMD Serono, and director of new business development at CVS Health.

Jennifer holds a BS in both computer science and mathematics and a Masters of Arts in education at the University of Pittsburgh.

Stephen J. Moloney, MD

Vice President, Global Medical Affairs

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Stephen brings more than 20 years of global medical affairs experience. He joined Strongbridge from PTC Therapeutics where he served as vice president, medical affairs and was responsible for prelaunch planning and launch efforts for genetic neuromuscular orphan disease product development in the Americas region. Prior, Stephen led several key product launches in genetic and rare diseases, serving as executive medical director at Aegerion, senior medical director at Shire Human Genetic Therapies, European medical director at Aspreva Pharmaceuticals, and roles of increasing responsibility at GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca.

Stephen holds an MD from Bristol University and completed a residency at Newcastle University, both in the United Kingdom.

Steven L. Schoenfeld, MD

Vice President, Clinical Research and Development

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Steve’s clinical development career includes over 27 years of multi-national drug development experience. Prior to joining Strongbridge, he served as senior vice president, clinical development at Viking Therapeutics where he was responsible for small molecules development for endocrine disorders, leading IND submissions and authoring key data presentations and publications. Prior to Viking Therapeutics, Steve served as vice president, clinical affairs at ArmaGen Therapeutics and CalciMedica Inc., and in several positions of increasing clinical responsibility under various divisions of Pfizer.

Steve holds an MD from New York Medical College and received his BS in biomedical sciences at the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education of the City College of New York.

Susan Thornton

Vice President, Regulatory Affairs

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Susan has nearly 20 years of senior regulatory affairs experience with specialty pharmaceutical companies. Before joining Strongbridge, Susan was vice president, regulatory affairs, at Antares Pharma, where she served as a key contributor for the submission, approval, and launch of the company’s first commercialized product. Prior, she held roles of increasing responsibility at Aptalis Pharma, Inc.; Barrier Therapeutics; and Teva Pharmaceuticals USA. Her development and postapproval product experience includes gastroenterology, rheumatology, dermatology, urology, biologics, generics, and devices.

Susan holds an MS degree in quality assurance and regulatory affairs from Temple University School of Pharmacy and a BS in chemistry from Rider University.

Steven L. Schoenfeld, MD Vice President, Clinical Research and Development

Susan Thornton Vice President, Regulatory Affairs

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